Matthews, E, Bannan, TJ, Khan, MAH et al. (20 more authors) (2023) Airborne observations over the North Atlantic Ocean reveal the importance of gas-phase urea in the atmosphere. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120 (25). e2218127120. ISSN 0027-8424
Abstract
Reduced nitrogen (N) is central to global biogeochemistry, yet there are large uncertainties surrounding its sources and rate of cycling. Here, we present observations of gas-phase urea (CO(NH2)2) in the atmosphere from airborne high-resolution mass spectrometer measurements over the North Atlantic Ocean. We show that urea is ubiquitous in the lower troposphere in the summer, autumn, and winter but was not detected in the spring. The observations suggest that the ocean is the primary emission source, but further studies are required to understand the responsible mechanisms. Urea is also observed aloft due to long-range transport of biomass-burning plumes. These observations alongside global model simulations point to urea being an important, and currently unaccounted for, component of reduced-N to the remote marine atmosphere. Airborne transfer of urea between nutrient-rich and -poor parts of the ocean can occur readily and could impact ecosystems and oceanic uptake of carbon dioxide, with potentially important climate implications.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 the Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | ATMOSPHERE, OCEAN, MASS SPECTROMETRY, NITROGEN CYCLING |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > National Centre for Atmos Science (NCAS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 03 Jul 2023 13:10 |
Last Modified: | 03 Jul 2023 13:10 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | National Academy of Sciences |
Identification Number: | 10.1073/pnas.2218127120 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:200480 |